2009-10 team pages
2009-10 season statistics
The University of Montana women’s basketball team will play its first home games of the 2009-10 season when the Lady Griz host Oregon and Denver early next week at Dahlberg Arena. Montana (0-2) will face the Ducks (1-0) Sunday at 2 p.m. and the Pioneers (1-1) Tuesday at 7 p.m.
Openers: Montana began the season with a pair of losses on its season-opening road trip to Colorado State and Wyoming last weekend. The Lady Griz fell to the Rams last Friday night, 72-64, and lost to the Cowgirls last Sunday afternoon, 68-38.
Oregon, which scored 109 points in both of its exhibition games, defeated Eastern Washington, 86-48, in its regular-season opener Monday in Eugene, Ore. The Ducks do not play again before facing the Lady Griz Sunday.
Denver has faced the same teams Montana opened with last weekend, playing both at home. After leading by two at the break against Wyoming last Friday, the Pioneers dropped their opener to the Cowgirls, 65-62.
Denver topped Colorado State Wednesday night, shooting 61.9 percent in the second half to pull away for a 68-55 victory.
The Pioneers are off until playing Montana Tuesday.
Media: Both of next week’s games can be monitored by:
Live stats: http://www.montanagrizzlies.com/pages/event.aspx?e=224&m=23
Video: http://b2tv.com/upcoming_events.asp?q=v&value=bigsky
Audio: http://www.energy1075.com/main.php
All three services are free of charge. The audio broadcast can also be heard locally on KENR 107.5 FM in the Missoula area with Tom Stage and Dick Slater.
Preseason projections: Montana was picked second (behind Portland State) in the preseason Big Sky Conference coaches poll, Oregon was picked eighth in the preseason Pac-10 poll and Denver was picked second (behind Arkansas-Little Rock) in the West Division in the preseason Sun Belt Conference poll.
Series histories: Sunday’s matchup will be the 14th meeting between Montana and Oregon, with the Ducks holding a 10-3 series advantage. The series dates back to the 1977-78 season when both teams were members of the Northwest Women’s Basketball League. The teams’ first six meetings came as league opponents.
Oregon has won three of the five previous meetings in Missoula.
The Lady Griz and Ducks met last year in Eugene. Montana limited Oregon to 18.2 percent first-half shooting to take a 32-17 halftime lead, then held on for a 60-52 victory. Four of Montana’s five starters scored in double figures, led by Mandy Morales’ 14-point, seven-assist, four-steal performance.
Micaela Cocks led Oregon with 11 points.
Last year’s game in Denver was the first-ever meeting between the Lady Griz and Pioneers.
Montana trailed 38-30 at the half and fell behind by 13 points, 53-40, before rallying back for a 68-63 victory. Sonya Rogers scored 16 second-half points on perfect shooting (4-for-4 from the field, 7-for-7 from the line) and 24 for the game.
Veterans of the sideline: First-year Oregon coach Paul Westhead has been coaching nearly four decades. He made his debut during the 1970-71 season at LaSalle and has 18 years of men’s basketball collegiate experience, with additional stops at Loyola Marymount and George Mason. This is his first season coaching a women’s collegiate program.
Westhead has a pair of NBA and WNBA titles, winning an NBA championship with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1980 and a WNBA ring with the Phoenix Mercury in 2007.
His most recent job prior to Oregon was as an assistant for the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder.
Unlike the itinerant Westhead, Montana coach Robin Selvig has been a steady presence at Montana.
Selvig is in his 37th year of affiliation with the Grizzlies/Lady Griz. He played for Montana (his freshman season coinciding with Westhead’s first season at LaSalle), coached the men’s freshman team for a season and is now in his 32nd season as coach of the Lady Griz.
Who’s in, who’s out: Junior Sarah Ena, the team’s leading returning scorer and rebounder from last year’s team, missed both games last weekend with an ankle injury but is probable for the Oregon game.
Sophomore Misty Atkinson and redshirt freshman Ashley Ferda are both out for at least another month with leg injuries.
Montana coach Robin Selvig on Oregon: “We’ve got a stiff challenge coming up on Sunday. Under Paul Westhead they’re getting it up and down. They’re throwing a lot of points up and pressuring and getting after people.
“He’s got a distinctive style of play and some good players doing it. They are impressive to watch on video right now. They’ve got a guard (in Nia Jackson) who missed last year who’s back playing and another (in Taylor Lilley) who missed our game out there last year who’s a deep-range shooter. They’re talented.”
Montana coach Robin Selvig on Denver: “I remember thinking after we got out of there with a tough win last year that that’s a good team and (Erik Johnson’s) going to have a good program. They play good, pressure defense. I haven’t watched a lot on them yet, but I remember they were very aggressive defensively. They threw a couple of different things at us, some man and zone.
“Their inside kids are athletic, and I know they have a couple of good ones back from last year (in Ashley Robinson and Kaetlyn Murdoch). (Murdoch) is a rebounding machine.”
Lady Griz hoping to tap into Dahlberg magic: Under Robin Selvig, Missoula and Dahlberg Arena have become one of the toughest places to get a road win in America. The Lady Griz are 431-45 (.905) at home under Selvig, with an even more impressive mark of 422-39 (.915) at Dahlberg Arena during his tenure (Montana played at Sentinel High School during the 1998-99 season).
Montana went 49-2 at home the last three seasons.
Lady Griz drop a pair on the road: Montana opened its season last Friday with a 72-64 loss at Colorado State. The Lady Griz fell behind 10-2 early, fought back to take a 34-31 halftime lead and led by six, 54-48, with 10 minutes remaining.
Montana missed its last nine shots and 11 of 12 over the final 10 minutes. The Rams shot 53.8 percent in the second half.
Freshman Kenzie De Boer scored a game-high 23 points off the bench in her collegiate debut. Senior Lauren Beck had 17 points, seven rebounds and four steals.
Two days later, Montana shot 18.9 percent in the first half at Wyoming to fall behind 39-17 at the break. The Cowgirls led by 38, 68-30, with under five minutes to play before the Lady Griz scored the game’s final eight points.
Senior Shaunte Nance-Johnson was Montana’s lone double-figure scorer, finishing with 10 points. The Lady Griz were held to 24.6 percent shooting.
Montana got out-rebounded by 23 over the two games, 46-37 at CSU and 49-35 at UW.
“We learned a lot last weekend, though there were some encouraging things, particularly the first night,” Selvig said. “We were missing our leading scorer and rebounder and playing four (true and redshirt) freshmen and we battled back and got the lead by half after falling behind early, then led for over half of the second half.
“We missed shots down the stretch, otherwise we might have come out of there with a great win. In terms of effort, that was a pretty good night on the road.
“We had a big performance that night out of Kenzie, who really came in and scored it. We’re looking for someone who can score it.
“The Wyoming game got away from us during the back half of the first half, then just snowballed. Pretty soon you’re down 20, and they’re too good of a team for us to make a run at right now.
“We’ve been drilled before, though not very often. It’s not fun as a coach, and it’s not fun as a player, but it was one game. How you bounce back from losses is part of the game.
“We need to put those losses behind us and learn from them and get excited about the next one. This is a group that is practicing hard every day and anxious to get better. And they are going to get better.”
More on Oregon: The Ducks went 9-21 a year ago, finishing seventh in the Pac-10 at 5-13 ... Oregon lost in the first round of the Pac-10 tournament to Washington, 69-43 ... The Ducks averaged just 56.6 points per game a year ago under coach Bev Smith ... (Now) senior guard Micaela Cocks led the team in scoring last year at 13.5 points per game ... Former Sacramento State coach Dan Muscatell is an assistant coach on Westhead’s staff ... Oregon won its exhibition games 109-47 over Southern Oregon and 109-65 over Western Oregon ... Senior guard Taylor Lilley, who missed eight games due to injury last season, including the Montana game, scored a game-high 28 points in UO’s season-opening win Monday against Eastern Washington, going 7-for-14 from 3-point range ... The Ducks got to the line 36 times in that game to the Eagles’ 11 and had a 14-rebound advantage ... Junior center Nicole Canepa came off the bench to score 17 points and grab 10 rebounds ... Oregon harassed Eastern Washington into a 3-for-24 performance from 3-point range and a 29.2 percent shooting performance overall.
More on Denver: Denver went 16-15 last year, tying for second in the Sun Belt’s West Division at 10-8 ... The Pioneers lost in overtime to Arkansas-Little Rock in the semifinals of the Sun Belt tournament ... Coach Erik Johnson is in his second season at DU ... Denver returned its top three scorers from last season: sophomore guard Britteni Rice (11.6 ppg), sophomore forward Kaetlyn Murdoch (9.7 ppg) and junior forward Ashly Robinson (9.2 ppg) ... Robinson (7.8 rpg) and Murdoch (6.6 rpg) led the team in rebounding ... Rice leads the team in scoring through two games at 20.0 points per game, with 16 against Wyoming and 24 against Colorado State ... Robinson (12 points, 12 rebounds) and Murdoch (10 points, 13 rebounds) both posted double-doubles against the Cowgirls ... Denver has gotten just 16 points off the bench through its first two games ... The Pioneers are shooting 48.5 percent through two games.
Up next: Montana travels to Los Angeles, Calif., over Thanksgiving weekend for Loyola Marymount’s tournament. The Lady Griz will face 2009 WNIT champion South Florida in the opening round on Friday, Nov. 27, then face either LMU or St. Louis in the consolation/championship game on Saturday, Nov. 28.
South Florida is off to a 1-2 start, St. Louis and Loyola Marymount 1-1.